House Orleans | Religion Roman Catholicism Name Princess of | |
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Spouse Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta(m. 1964; div. 1982)Arnaldo La Cagnina(m. 1982; div. 1996)Enrico Gandolfi(m. 2006; his death 2015) Issue Princess BiancaPrince Aimone, Duke of ApuliaPrincess Mafalda Mother Princess Isabelle of Orleans-Braganza | ||
Princess Claude of Orléans (Claude Marie Agnès Catherine; born 11 December 1943) is a French princess of the House of Orléans. She is the former wife of Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, a disputed head of the House of Savoy. Claude was the third Orleanist Princess to hold the title Duchess of Aosta.
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Family
Princess Claude was born in Larache as the ninth child and fifth daughter of Henri, comte de Paris, Orléanist claimant to the French throne, and his wife Princess Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza.
She is the sister of Prince Henri, Count of Paris, the current Orleanist pretender to the French throne, as well as Diane, Duchess of Württemberg, and Prince Jacques, Duke of Orléans. They grew up together on an estate outside Lisbon, Portugal.
Marriage and issue
On 22 July 1964 in Sintra, Portugal, Princess Claude married Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta. He was the only son of Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta and Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark. His father had been recognized by some as Tomislav II of Croatia.
During the time of their wedding, Amedeo was a student at the Morosini Naval College in Venice, where his father had also attended. The couple met while attending the wedding of Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and Sofia of Greece and Denmark in May 1962 in Athens. They announced their engagement on 4 October 1963. The couple married in a parish church twelve miles from Lisbon. The wedding had been planned for earlier in the month, but was rescheduled after former king Umberto II of Italy (uncle of the groom) needed time to recover from an abdominal operation. The wedding was attended by 300 guests, including Umberto and Prince Juan Carlos and his wife Princess Sofia.
They had three children together:
Divorce
Amedeo and Claude officially separated from each other 20 July 1976. They received a civil divorce 26 April 1982, and an ecclesiastical annulment from the Roman Rota 8 January 1987. Amedeo remarried to Silvia Paternò di Spedalotto later that year. Silvia is now the current holder of the style Duchess of Aosta. Claude reverted to her previous style of Princess of France, as a daughter of the Orleanist claimant Henri, comte de Paris. Claude remarried twice: civilly in 1982 with Arnaldo La Cagnina (divorce in 1996) and both civilly and religiously with Enrico Gandolfi (the religious wedding was celebrated in 2006 in Oreno, in the diocesis of Milan). Enrico died on 27 October 2015 in Laterina.